BRIEF 01: STA TRAVEL AGENTS

For research I visited STA travel agents — which is a predominately student based travel agents to gather some information on travel guides and location for the content of my publication.

I spoke to Julia who worked there and she informed me about all the different types of travelling brochures and packages they have to offer which range from — volunteering, the best cities, global back packing and country specific visits.

Content

In my initial brief outline I wanted to look into the top 10 best places to visit for cultural activities and sights. I decided to look through the brochures and highlight relevant information that would help inform this the brief.

Introduction — detailing what the company is about and the contents pages to see what is covered the brochure.

Information about the travel agents and questions or queries about travelling.

Infographic — World map showing all the potential places to visit. A option to 'DIY' your own trip, choosing places to visit making it personal to the user. 

I found this section really useful in me figuring out the places I could use in my publication. Due to the publication being called Orbit and it being associated with circling  the world. 

I decided to choose the top 10 places from this that somewhat represented a travel route that went around within that shape. I also chose the cities based on the sightseeing aspects and and cultural activities that had been presented in the manuals.

1. London

2. Reyjavik

3. New York

4. Mexico City

5. Brazil — Rio de janiro

6. Cape Town

7. Sydney

8. Goa

9. Hong Kong

10. Tokyo

Another feature I really liked from publication was how they selected continents and showed all the different cities and places within them allowing users to pick and choose where they might travel. 

Again this refers back to the idea of creating a travel route that goes round in a circle to solidify the ida of Orbit. These are examples of different travel routes and images. 

There are small tabs with 'tips & tricks' that I thought would be really interesting feature to have, it makes the publication more personal and gives off an informative tone of voice.

A range of places to stay while visiting the country & their star rating.

The best places to eat and drink while travelling the area and what the locals get up to.

Considerations

Whilst gathering content, I also decided to list some layout features that I thought would be relevant to consider, from my look into these publications.

•  Photography driven layout.
•  Infographics of a map or travel route.
•  Introduction to the cities to give insight to audience.
•  Colour coded to break up the content.
•  Tips and tricks when travelling.

Overview

Visiting and speaking to specialists within the field of travel was really beneficial in me gaining a bigger understanding on the different type of travelling there are out there. Although I have decided to write about the top 10 places, features such as where people can stay and 'tips' and 'tricks' of travelling is something I can definitely consider for the publication and expanding the content further.

Also in me looking at these travel guides it has enabled me to see what content would be relevant to my target audience and the tone of voice required.